Archive for August, 2005

Today we’re sharing with you another example of how much thought can go into translating even part of a verse.

This post condenses a 9-page PDF by Charles Kuykendall and C. John Collins (the Old Testament Chair for the ESV). We encourage you to read the paper if you want a fuller discussion.

Here’s 1 Peter 3:15a:

but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy… (ESV)

This verse cites Isaiah 8:13:

But the LORD of hosts, him you shall regard as holy. (ESV)

The full paper deals with the following questions, which we will only summarize here.

1. What is the true text of 1 Peter 3:15?

The King James Version translates this verse as:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. (KJV)

Note that it has “God” instead of “Christ.” The manuscript evidence favors “Christ.”

2. Can we translate this verse to show the connection to the Old Testament?

Most translations do not attempt to bring out the citation. They use different English words in Isaiah and 1 Peter.

3. What is the proper meaning of the Greek verb “to make holy” in this verse?

People don’t make God holy, so in this case the verb carries more the sense of treating or revering him as holy. The English word “sanctify” condenses this idea into a single word. Saying that we “set apart” Christ undertranslates the meaning, since “setting apart” doesn’t convey holiness in English.

4. What is the grammatical relationship of “Lord” and “Christ?”

Most English translations treat Lord as a “complementary accusative”–that is:

but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. (RSV)

The ESV treats Christ and Lord as appositives: “Christ the Lord.” In addition to the Greek grammatical evidence for this translation, this verse is directly applying the Old Testament passage to Jesus. It strongly affirms the deity of Christ.

Here’s Malachi 2:16 in the ESV:

“For the man who hates and divorces, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Here’s Malachi 2:16 in the RSV:

“For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.”

You can see the different emphasis of the verse in these two translations. Why did the ESV translators translate this verse this way?

The answer turns on some fairly technical points in Hebrew, but it boils down to three arguments, as explained by ESV Old Testament Chairman C. John Collins:

1. The translation of this verse found in the AV [KJV] (and most English Bibles since then), with God hating divorce, represents a departure from the translation tradition of the previous centuries.
2. The rendering of the ESV, which has a Judean man “hating” his wife and divorcing her, does the best job of handling the details of the Masoretic Text, with no corrections. It also enables us to see how this fits into the context of profaning the calling of the people of God.
3. This way of reading Malachi 2:16 allows us to see how the verse fits into the overall promotion of covenant fidelity as the ideal of marriage, an ideal for which the faithful among the people of God—whether in ancient Israel or in the Christian Church today—will seek all the resources of grace, of forgiveness, of fellowship with the saints, and of the Holy Spirit’s enabling power.

That’s the short answer. For the long answer, read this 25-page article (pdf) by C. John Collins. You can also find this article (and others) on the Articles page elsewhere on this website.